Over the Derbyshire border, 8 road miles west of Nottingham
Skylights & rooflights in Ilkeston
A Derbyshire town on the River Erewash that made its name on lace, iron and coal. The mills have gone quiet, and plenty of the rooms under their old roofs still wait for daylight.
A valley town with a canal at its foot
Three waterways, the River Erewash, the Erewash Canal and the old Nottingham Canal, run beside Ilkeston. A roof near open water and trees can stay wet for long spells in the grey season.
Ilkeston, read from the valley up
Ilkeston is a town of around 40,953 people at the 2021 census, in the Borough of Erewash, Derbyshire. It sits between Derby and Nottingham, and it belongs to the Nottingham urban area even though the county line puts it across the border. Below is what we weigh up on an Ilkeston roof before suggesting a skylight or a rooflight, from the council that decides to the van that arrives. If you would rather meet the firm first, begin with skylight installation in Nottingham.
01
Lace, iron and coal: a working town's roofs
Three trades shaped Ilkeston: coal mining, iron working and lace making. All three have now all but disappeared, which tells you something about the buildings. A town whose main trades have gone often has buildings that changed use, and a building that changed use often carries a roof never meant to hold a window.
The Stanton Ironworks, later known as Stanton and Staveley, was one of the biggest local employers. It took over a number of smaller ironstone quarrying and ironworks companies, which is a reminder that this was an area of many small concerns before one large one swallowed them up.
Reading a roof that has had several lives
Any house may carry hand-cut rafters or factory-made trusses under its covering, and each takes a different approach to a new opening. From the pavement you cannot tell which timbers sit behind the covering, so the survey begins in the loft, not on the doorstep.
That is why the visit comes first. We go up into the loft if there is one, look at how the roof is built, see what covers it and measure the room underneath. A roof that has had several lives is often a roof that has been patched, and we would rather find the patches before a quote than on the day.
In practice that means a torch, a tape and a good look at the underside of the covering. We note any slipped tiles, old repairs and the spacing of the rafters, because each of them changes what a new opening will cost to frame and flash. You see the same notes we do.
Old buildings turned to new use
Where a former workshop or small commercial unit has become a home or a studio, the roof is often a long, shallow span with little natural light below it. Small commercial jobs are welcome with us, and a run of flat rooflights along a shallow roof is a very different job from a single roof window in a bedroom. We say which it is after the survey.
02
Erewash Borough Council and the town centre conservation area
12listed
buildings inside Ilkeston Town Centre Conservation Area
25listed
Historic England entries, 1.5 km round the town centre point
Your local planning authority in Ilkeston is Erewash Borough Council. It is a Derbyshire council, so the planning and Building Control questions on a rooflight go to Erewash, not to Nottingham City Council, although central Nottingham is a short drive off.
What is recorded in the centre
The national planning data records Ilkeston Town Centre as a conservation area covering the town centre point, designated on 6 November 1979. Twelve listed buildings sit inside it: two at Grade II* and ten at Grade II. A second conservation area, Cossall, lies about 1.46 km out. It was designated in 1972 and holds six listed buildings, two at Grade II* and four at Grade II, though it belongs to a neighbouring settlement.
Historic England's list holds 25 entries once you count out to 1.5 km round the town centre point: one Grade I, three Grade II* and twenty-one Grade II.
- Grade II*
- The middle listing grade, kept for particularly important buildings.
- Listed building consent
- The extra approval that listed status adds, covering anything from windows to a roof opening.
- Conservation area
- A designated area whose character the council aims to protect; an Article 4 direction is the exception; otherwise a house rooflight there is normally permitted development.
Why that matters on your roof
A listed house cannot take a new roof opening without listed building consent. Inside a conservation area a house usually keeps its right to a rooflight, so the thing to rule in or out is a local Article 4 order. So a house in the town centre area gets checked with Erewash before a single pane is ordered.
Not sure whether your street is inside the boundary? Mention it when you book, and we will confirm it with Erewash.
Where Erewash ends and the England-wide rules begin
England-wide rules do not change at the Erewash boundary. For the planning limits on a rooflight and the Building Regulations, read our planning permission for rooflights. Where a job has to be notified, we send it in, either to the council's Building Control team or to an approver from the private register, and the finished roof is built to the rules current at the time.
03
Getting to Ilkeston: the A roads, the M1 and the rail line
Drive west out of Nottingham and Ilkeston is 8 road miles on, around 20 minutes in a van. The M1 motorway is close by, and four classified roads lie inside a one-kilometre ring round the centre: the A6007, A609, A6096 and B6007. The Erewash Valley Line skirts the eastern edge of the town.
The railway has its own story here. Ilkeston had no station from 1967 to 2017, despite its population, after Ilkeston Junction & Cossall closed in January 1967. Today the Ilkeston station is open, some 1.3 km off the centre, and a closed one, Ilkeston North, sits about a kilometre away. We drive to jobs, so none of this changes how we arrive, but it shows how the town spreads along the valley.
What the visit involves
The survey itself costs nothing. We begin with the room: where the daylight gives out, where you stand to cook or work, which wall catches the best patch in December. Next comes the roof, how it is built and what it measures. The price is written after that, and it holds.
When we book, we ask how a van and a ladder can reach the house. On older streets, that question saves a surprise on the day.
8miles
road miles from Nottingham's centre
20minutes
in the van, Nottingham to Ilkeston
Larklands and the streets around it
Larklands is recorded as a neighbourhood about a kilometre from the town centre point. It is on our list, like everything inside the 30-mile road radius around Nottingham. Our areas we cover page shows the neighbouring towns.
04
Canals, river and parks: what the setting does to a roof
Wet ground and still air, and what that means for glass.
Water runs through the edges of Ilkeston. The Erewash Canal, the River Erewash and the Nottingham Canal are all inside roughly 1.5 km. The parks close to the centre include Chaucer Old Park, Victoria Park, Wash Meadows, Kirk Hallam Lake and Meadows, Straw's Bridge and Granby Park. Beyond them are several local nature reserves: Pewit Coronation Meadows, Pewit Carr, Manor Floods, Pioneer Meadows and Trowell Marsh, as well as Stanton North Lagoons.
That is a lot of water and open ground close by. It does not mean a roof here is in trouble. It does mean that on a still October morning the air near the ground holds moisture, and a room with an unvented ceiling can feel it.
Condensation on the glass
In most rooms the coldest surface is the rooflight. When kitchen or bathroom steam meets it, water forms on the inner pane. A glazing unit built with warm-edge material round its rim keeps that inner pane from turning icy, and an opening rooflight lets steam out before it condenses. For a bathroom or kitchen, we lean towards the opening kind.
Leaves, moss and a wet roof
Trees along park edges and canal banks drop leaves on a roof through autumn. On a flat roof they pack against the upstand and hold water there. We build the upstand tall, so a puddle never touches the glass edge. Pitched roofs get a flashing set cut for the exact tile or slate, which lets debris slide past.
If you have a moss-covered slope, it is worth knowing that moss holds water against the flashing. We note it on the survey, and we say plainly if the roof covering needs attention from a roofer before a roof window goes in.
05
What we would look at first for an Ilkeston home
Whatever the house, we start with the dark room, not the product. Three situations are worth looking at first, and each one answers a different problem.
A kitchen at the back of the house
If a single-storey extension has pushed the kitchen away from the garden, the far end can stay gloomy till spring. A flat rooflight over that end, or a lantern, brings light into the darkest part of the floor. Our page on flat roof rooflights shows how the upstand and the glazing are built, and the roof lanterns page covers the raised option.
A bedroom or study in the roof
Where there is space under a pitched roof, a roof window offers a patch of sky and a way to air the room. We choose the position by where you sit, not by where the rafters happen to fall, and we measure the gap before naming a size.
When an Ilkeston rooflight has misted over
If your roof already has a rooflight that has misted or tired, there is a simpler route. Replacing it in the existing opening is often simpler than cutting a new one, and the work is covered by our written ten-year workmanship guarantee. We tell you after the survey whether the unit, the frame or the upstand needs the work.
In a grey Derbyshire winter the difference shows. A clear, sealed unit passes more of the low light, while a misted one turns a bright room flat and dull. If yours has clouded, it has stopped doing the job it was bought for.
Asked by people planning a rooflight in Ilkeston
Which council deals with a rooflight in Ilkeston?
Erewash Borough Council is the local planning authority for Ilkeston, not Nottingham City Council. On an ordinary house a rooflight rarely needs a planning application, but a listing or a flat can change that, as can a direction made under Article 4. Your address is checked with Erewash before we order, and the Building Control notification, where one is due, is ours to handle.
Is the town centre a conservation area?
Yes. Ilkeston Town Centre is a conservation area, designated in 1979, with twelve listed buildings inside it. If you live in or near the centre, send us the address when you book. Erewash is asked whether the address has an Article 4 direction or a listing. If neither applies, permitted development covers a house rooflight there as normal.
Our extension kitchen is dark at the far end. What would help?
Light from above, whether a flat rooflight or a lantern, usually does most. It reaches the part of the room the garden doors never light. We look at the room, the ceiling height and the roof structure on the survey, then give you a fixed written quote for the option that suits.
We are in Larklands. Do you come that far?
Yes. Larklands sits comfortably inside our radius, as does the rest of Ilkeston. Surveys cost nothing, and since we have no showroom we simply visit you.